Giants advance to the NLCS

GIANTS 3 - BRAVES 2



The San Francisco Giants will face the Philadelphia Phillies in the NLCS starting Saturday.

Until then we will have a week to bask in the glory of the hard fought four game NLDS win over the Atlanta Braves.  Hopefully the Giants will be able to find a little bit of offense along the way as well!

But for now we can celebrate.  This was a Giants team that was written off and left for dead during the season.  Both by the fans and by the media.  Hell, at some point during their 7 game losing streak I even purchased a Fire Sabean T-shirt!

That was before an epic run by the starting pitching and just barely enough offense to make that epic run stand up.

In the NLDS, they won the first game 1-0, gave game two to the Braves, tried to give back games 3 and 4, but the offense just eeked out enough runs to defeat the Braves and send the citizens of Atlanta back home with their foam tomahawks between their legs.

Tim Lincecum, Matt Cain, Jonathan Sanchez, Madison Bumgarner.  These are your NLDS MVPs.  Sure the media is going to say that, if there was an NLDS MVP award (and why isn't there?), it should go to someone like Cody Ross or Buster Posey.  But in reality, the Giants MVP(s) is that 4 man rotation.  It has been all year long and it will be what the Giants need to ride if they are to slay the beast from the NL East.

It's going to be a tough series, but then again aren't they all?  The Giants will face the only other rotation in the playoffs that can hang with theirs but with a better offense.  They will be the underdogs.  I would call them the Giant killers but that somehow doesn't sound right.

Anyway, enough with the rambling and random thoughts.  Congratulations G-men!  But don't get too comfortable, there is still more work to do!

NLDS Trivia:
Did you know that the two Giants who hit homeruns in the NLDS were Pat Burrell and Cody Ross?  Yes they were the two guys that the Giants claimed off waivers for nobody in return and, if you are to believe some reports, to keep them away from the Padres!

Giants throw game 2 away

Burrell's 3-run homer had us excited early

When Matt Cain walked off the mound in the 7th inning it looked like the Giants would be cruising to a 2-0 series lead.  Pat Burrell got the Giants going with a first inning 3 run homerun and Matt Cain helped himself out with an RBI single in the second.  Cain had pitched well, only allowing one unearned run on 7 hits.  Javier Lopez got out of the 7th without giving up any runs.

Then came the 8th inning.

The normally steady duo of Brian Wilson and Sergio Romo came on and coughed up the lead.  A bad throw by Pablo Sandoval allowed one of the Braves 8th inning runs to be unearned making 2 of the Braves runs on the night unearned.

Romo and Wilson had to get over their postseason jitters I guess.  Romo didn't retire a single batter while allowing 2 baserunners.  The Sandoval on a slow roller to third with runners on first and third in the eighth inning wouldn't have prevented the runner on third from scoring but the runner who scored the tying run on Alex Gonzalez's 2 run double wouldn't have been on base to score the tying run.

In the bottom of the 10th the Giants were in position to win the game with the bases loaded, one out, and future rookie of the year Buster Posey at the plate.  All the Giants needed at this point was anything other than a double play.  A double play is exactly what the Giants got.  One of the storylines of the 2010 season returned to bite the Giants in the ass at the worst possible time.  The momentum suddenly was in the Braves dugout.

In the 11th Ramon Ramirez served up a fat pitch on a plate for Rick Ankiel who hit what has to be the longest homerun of his career to put the Braves up to stay.  It looked like Travis Ishikawa caught ahold of one in the bottom of the 11th but it was off the end of the bat was just a fly ball out.

The Braves and Giants will head to Atlanta for game 3.  The Giants need to just win one game in the Atl.  Johnny No-no will be taking the mound for the Giants while the Braves will counter with Tim Hudson.  It's gonna be another tough battle for the Giants and probably another torturous game.  But us Giants fans are used to those so it will be no problem.

We can all worry about any heart conditions after the Giants win the world series!

Lincecum steamrolls Braves

GIANTS 1 - BRAVES 0

That was the first 1-0 Giants game this season that didn't feel like torture!

It just seemed like no matter what, the Braves weren't going to be scoring any runs off of Tim Lincecum.  He was that dominant.  Matt Diaz summed Timmy's performance up best when he compared it to the game earlier this season in which the Braves were no-hit by Ubaldo Jimenez: “We had two hard-hit doubles. Other than that, we might have hit more hard-hit balls in the no-hitter, and got no hits. We only really had two balls hit hard at all tonight.”

It was that good of a performance.

It was also a performance for the record books.  Both the Giants' record books and MLB's record books. Lincecum set a franchise postseason record of 14 strikeouts in a single playoff game.  He also tied the record for most strikeouts in a postseason debut.  Last night he joined the likes of Bob Gibson, Roger Clemens, Sandy Koufax, and Mike Scott who all struck out at least 14 in a single postseason game.  (Livan Hernandez did too but that game will forever live in infamy as the game with the largest strike zone of all time!)

The game wasn't without controversy however.  Buster Posey's steal of second base in the fourth inning and led to the only Giants run of the game was the source of said controversy.   Pat Burrell struck out while Buster was on the move in what only could have been a broken hit and run.  The throw to second looked like it might or might not have got Posey and he was ruled safe.  TV replays showed Posey was clearly out by a good 6 inches or so but there was no disagreement on the field.  A few batters later Cody Ross grounded a ball that magically eluded Omar Infante's glove and scored Posey in what was the only run of the game.

Now let's take a break and talk about instant replay here.  There are a lot of blogs pointing to this play as a reason as to why baseball needs instant replay.  I do agree that baseball needs instant replay, bit this is a bad example.  instant replay would have had zero effect on this play.  Nobody on the field even questioned the call.  Not the second baseman, not Bobby Cox, Buster Posey didn't even look surprised to be called safe.  Cox said of the play: “Some of the guys came down after that inning and said he was out by 6 or 8 inches. From the dugout you can’t see anything, and I didn’t see a reaction from our infielders.”  So even if baseball had instant replay it would never have been used in that situation.

But the real story of the game is Tim Lincecum.  He has been called the franchise and last night he proved it.  Rarely does a young pitcher come out and pitch like a veteran in his first postseason game.  Usually the nerves get to him and it takes an inning or two to settle down.  Last night it took Lincecum exactly one batter to calm down.  Calm down he did!

I think this is going to be a special playoff run.